Why Won‘t Brynjolf Talk to Me in Skyrim?

If the master thief Brynjolf suddenly stops talking to you in the midst of the Thieves Guild questline in Skyrim, it‘s almost certainly due to a bug or glitch. Don‘t worry – there are a few potential fixes that should get him speaking again in no time.

Prerequisite Quest Conflicts

One of the most common reasons for Brynjolf refusing to talk is if you have active or unfinished prerequisite quests related to the Thieves Guild‘s questline.

Specifically, the following quests need to be completed before Brynjolf will continue his Thieves Guild dialogue:

• A Chance Arrangement
• Taking Care of Business
• Loud and Clear
• Dampened Spirits
• Scoundrel‘s Folly

If any of those Thieves Guild quests are still active, try completing them then returning to Brynjolf.

Reset the Scene

Another simple fix you can try is resetting the Riften scene by leaving the area for a few in-game days. This gives NPCs and quests time to reset properly:

1. Make sure you do not have any active Riften or Thieves Guild quests in your journal
2. Fast travel away from Riften to another city
3. Wait 3-5 in-game days
4. Return to Riften, then find Brynjolf and speak to him again

Console Commands

If the above fixes don‘t work, you can use console commands on the PC version of Skyrim to manually reset Brynjolf.

Bring up the console by hitting the tilde (~) key, click on Brynjolf so his ID populates, then enter these console commands:

resetquest TGRelationship
resetAI 
disable
enable

This will completely reset Brynjolf‘s AI and scripts. Make sure to save your game first!

Conflicting Map Locations

Very rarely, entering certain locations can inexplicably break Brynjolf until you revert back:

• Blackreach
• Soul Cairn

If you‘ve visited either of these places recently, backtrack and leave, then return to Riften.

So in summary – double check your quest log for conflicts, reset the Riften scene through fast travel, or use console commands to reset Brynjolf. That should get him talking to you once again!

Deeper Technical Causes

For those curious about some deeper technical causes behind this common bug:

Brynjolf‘s dialogue and functionality hinges on several intricately connected quest scripts running properly in sequence. Specifically, the TGRelationship, TGDialogue, and DialogueRiftenThievesGuild quests need to trigger under precise conditions to avoid issues.

If errors occur in those sequences, dialogue options disappear. Problems most frequently happen during the fence-selling tutorial portion of the Thieves Guild questline.

Here is a simple breakdown of the multi-stage processes directing Brynjolf‘s interactions:

As you can see, there are a lot of moving parts directing something as simple as a conversation. It doesn‘t take much to throw the sequencing out of whack.

While most issues derive from unfinished prerequisite quests, deeper scripting errors can happen as well, blocking further progress.

So if the above fixes don‘t work, reloading an earlier save from before the issues started is another option.

I hope these troubleshooting tips help restore your interactions with Brynjolf! Let me know if you encounter any other problems.